RUSSIA: The party of reformist President Mikhail Saakashvili looked to have won every available seat in Georgia's parliamentary elections yesterday, in a massively one-sided poll that reinforced the mandate of the leader of last year's "rose revolution".
Independent exit polls showed that his supporters had won all 150 seats that were up for grabs in the 235-seat parliament, with opposition voices only represented among 85 members of the chamber who did not have to contest their seats yesterday.
The US-educated lawyer is still hugely popular four months after spearheading the protests that forced the resignation of veteran leader Mr Eduard Shevardnadze, and rallying people to his cause of crushing corruption and raising living standards.
Mr Saakashvili, Europe's youngest elected head of state, came to prominence at the vanguard of protests against last November's parliamentary poll, which international observers said was riddled with irregularities and marred by intimidation.
"The message is that Georgia will take the route of dramatic economic and liberal democratic reforms," Mr Saakashvili said. "I'd rather have a bigger opposition representation but it's not up to me, that's the will of the people."
Mr Zurab Chiaberashvili, head of Georgia's Central Commission, reported violations in the restive Adzharia region that he said were "serious enough to affect the overall results of the election across the whole country".
Adzharia was almost the flashpoint this month for a showdown between Mr Saakashvili and local leader Mr Aslan Abashidze, a firebrand populist who runs the Black Sea province like his personal fiefdom.
Mr Abashidze's security forces barred Mr Saakashvili from entering the region, prompting fears of a civil war.
Russia helped broker a truce and talks between Mr Saakashvili and Mr Abashidze, and is keen to remain a key player in the future of Georgia, where it still maintains two military bases, to the displeasure of Tbilisi.
The US is Georgia's main financier, and wants to foster stability in a country traversed by a multi-billion pipeline carrying oil from the Caspian Sea to Western markets.